Finding Treasure and the feel of greed

Its early morning with the tide out as I walk along a dark, black/grey, sandy beach. The sea is almost calm but the slight swell undulates the waters edge in a way that reminds me of the way women run their fingers through their hair, going in and then out ever so slowly. 

This vision, along with the crowing of roosters and the never ending pulsating movement of the shoreline, enhances the early morning coolness of this secret beach. You see Iam not here today to just enjoy my surroundings, Iam here to look for and collect treasure.

Lots of it.

I have been sailing the worlds oceans since I was a kid, having grown up on a sailboat from the 60s to today. During this time period of cruising about the Pacific and Atlantics waters I have had the good fortune to have had a good vessel to carry me and my crew to many great and wonderful beaches with shore lines where treasure could be found. To be a successful treasure hunter you need a good like minded crew, and a boat that can carry your loot back home.

I found my first real piece of treasure at the age of 3 in 1960 on the beach in Mission Bay in San Diego, California. It was a dead crab Skelton. Since that first find I have been an inveterent beach comber, Treasure Hunter. Growing up on a sailboat sailing off to distant islands and countrys brought me to many fantastic beaches, shorelines, hidden coves, shallow reefs with myriad pieces of beach finds to be had.

I have nurtured and refined this passion for found objects into an art form by literally turning beach finds into art that I create. Over the years my crew and I have sailed thousands of miles across oceans collecting, shorting and stowing our finds with it all eventually ending up at our home base in the Bahamas where we use it in decorating our house and property or turning it into art that we sell to finace future voyages. At least 15 tons to date have been collected from the shorelines, stowed aboard and then maybe a year or two later when we return from a sailing cruise it is unloaded to await the next leg in its life.

This morning, bent over walking along zig zagging between the low tide line and last nights upper reaches of the waters edge, finds me picking up jewels. They are everywhere. Its like Montazuma, King Soloman, and Drake used to vacation here and they just dumped their treasures on the shoreline.

I have not discovered treasure like this in a long time. My pulse is flowing as I pick up each piece that has been tossing about for untold years being polished and formed into its unique shape and color.

In no time I have collected a bucket full of centurys old sea glass that used to be glass bottles that held wine, rum, perfumes, medicine, and poison. The really black pieces are the oldest, maybe 180 plus years. The blues, ambers, light pinks, greys, greens and reds all tell a story from the past. I pour the bucket into our dinghy carefully and go back for more.

The day before found Rachel, my wife, and I along with cruising friends Tim and Gayle Evans of the ketch Wild Bird were playing with our dogs along this stretch of beach. I was collecting very old bricks that had been rolling back and forth in the surf line, slowly caressed and at times pummelled into an oval rounded smooth shape by the never ending relentless surf. These bricks find their way to the ocean by way of hurricanes, old battles and simply just being thrown into the sea. I like the human connection of the sea bricks. These I would carry back home to be used in concrete foot paths in our home base in the Bahamas. I have collected beach stones throughout the North Atlantic basin from beaches and shorelines from where all the great explorers have come and gone from as they went about their lives. On one Atlantic trip we returned to our place with over a ton of these stones we found and collected from the islands of the Azores, Madeiras, Canaries, Cape Verdes, through the West Indies and back to the Bahamas. We built our small place in the Bahamas to be our base to offload all our beach finds. A place to stow, exhibit, and use our treasures. We call our land base "Tight Spot" as it has water on three sides. The land our two houses are built on is 152 long and 31 wide. We think of it as our land Yacht with the west side, that is the Starboard side, being tied to our neighbours lands. From a life time of beach combing and collecting we can say we have a piece of most all islands in the Caribbean and Atlantic waters at our place. "yeah , St. Barts over there,  granite stones from Denmark over there" and so on.

As the four of us walked along the beach I started finding bits of sea glass, then lots of it. I had never seen so much such thick beautifully sculpted pieces. We all started picking them up off the sand. Later that evening Tim came over to our sailboat with his iPhone and Internet access to show us that the totally black pieces we had found were very rare and old. We also could see all the web sites for selling sea glass and jewelry made from and with sea glass for sale. Some raw pieces were for sale on eBay for twenty dollars. Nice jewelry was selling in the hundreds. It was getting dark. I planned on being on the beach early. That night I had visions as I dreamed of making a huge seaglass chandelier for our small house, seaglass stepping stones, jewelry, necklases, and to get as much as I could I would use a huge barge with a JCB backhoe to dig up the entire beach. Oh the treasure to be found. So much loot just lay there waiting all these years to be had. This was the first time in my life I felt greed creeping into my soul. 

Over the next several days the four of us collected seaglass. Tim and Gayle had caught the fever too.

But not like me. I kept finding myself looking down as I walked everywhere, looking for a really perfect piece. I swam with a snorkel and mask along the shoreline in the gentle surf picking the pieces out of the shifting sands, beach pebbles, and stones like brightly painted Easter eggs off the grass. It was so easy and so much fun. I could not stop. How much did I really need? I wanted it all.

I looked online  to research seaglass. So much information! What all the seaglass people were promoting was that Daimonds are made by nature and then crafted by man, but seaglass is made by man and then crafted by nature. Excellent marketing. Quickly I came to realize that to sell seaglass I would have to be a very creative  jeweler, and make some very unique pieces of art to make money. This I will do. 

I have happily gotten over my greed. But not totally. I want to go back and anchor at this beach again for a few more days collecting as you never know what might come rolling out of the surf. Plus this place is so good the four of us have taken an oath not to share its location. But if you see the Hogfish Maximuis anchored close to a beautiful beach and Iam ashore hunched over walking slowly with a bucket in my hand then go get yours and we can compare finds at dusk.

A jewel sits waiting to be found

Walking the beach looking

Treasures in between the stones

The first haul of loot

Diving up more loot

A days treasure hunting finds

All Mine!!!!

Bottle bottoms, stoppers and nice big thick seaglass

So many colours in Rachels sample

Another pile, the blue chunks turn dark green when put to the light

In seaglass lingo they call the outer worn surface " frosting"

Where do I store my treasure till I get home? In modern day sea plastic 

Found on the beach of course

Rocks drying off before storing in Madiera

A nice haul of beach finds from about the Atlantic islands

Our place "Tight Spot" today

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Kees Prins and Fetch

Kees Prins stopped by for a visit and took Doryman out for a sail on Fetch. You remember Kees. He built Sparrow, the Ed Davis surf dory on the header of this blog and also designed and built the Townsend Tern. He built the Small Craft Advisor Scamp. Hes an old friend of Iain Oughtred. Hes a world traveler from the Netherlands and a boatbuilder of some renown.






Kees is headed from his home in Port Townsend, Washington State across the United States and ultimately to Maine. He stopped by on his way to park his van and the exceptional 17 foot, gunter-rigged Fetch out back, in Dorymans boatyard. He seemed to feel right at home there.





While he was here, we launched Fetch in the Yaquina River one afternoon when the weather ranged from full sun to driving rain and eventually hail. Nice way to entertain a guest, dont you agree? Kees didnt seem to mind - in fact enjoyed himself.

You can follow Kees cross-country adventure from the blog section of the on-line magazine, Small Craft Advisor.













Where will Kees Prins wet his keel next?







Right away, Kees wanted to go out the jaws to the raging Pacific Ocean, though there was a restriction on the bar for boats under twenty eight feet. And here is the video to prove it. The mans insane (and thats a good thing).



A great day on the water my friend. Thank you so very much!


Fetch is an Iain Oughtred Fulmar Dinghy built as an open boat by my good friend, Ralph Merriman. Kees added the cabin, decks and self draining cockpit.
This boat was featured in the September/October issue of the Small Craft Advisor
There is also a discussion of this boat on the WoodenBoat Forum.
The plans for the Fulmar Dinghy can be found here.

Length	Beam		Weight (kg)	Sail Area
16 8" - 5.08m	5 10" - 1.80m		175	160 sq ft

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Of Camels Boats Dunes and Things

We all learn in school about the "ship of the desert", the much maligned camel. These animals and their owners are totally adapted to living on and cruising the undulating surface of the desert. We also know of the traditional boats of the Arab world, the dhows that are seen in both power and sail versions. These are very seaworthy boats and have done extensive voyages.

Not heard of nearly as often in that part of the world is the construction of a modern high performance yacht. Such a construction project is the Didi Mini Mk3 of Hugo Vanderschaegh, proceeding apace in Dubai. This is a Mini 650 racer that is built from plywood. Designed primarily for amateur builders, this one is being built by professionals. The photos below show the hull with all flat sheets fitted and the radius skin starting, through to hull turning.

This boat is being built from a CNC kit that was supplied by our Cape Town kit supplier, CKD Boats. They are able to supply kits for most of our radius chine plywood designs as well as the classically-styled lapstrake designs.

Didi Mini Mk3, flat panels completed and 1st layer of radius starting.

2nd layer of radius almost finished.

Didi Mini Mk3 hull skin completed.

Clean and powerful stern sections.

Completed hull ready to turn over.

They turned Hugos hull right-way-up last week and recorded it on time-lapse video. They accomplished it with plenty of helping hands and no mechanical equipment. This is a wide boat, at 3m beam, so it towers above the men providing the muscle power. It worked in their situation with lots of hands but "dont try this at home". For the average builder it is better and safer to use mechanical equipment to raise one side under control then lower it again on the other side.

You can see more of his Didi Mini Mk3 project on Hugos website and follow future progress. Also visit our website at http://dixdesign.com/ to read more about our range of designs and available kits for our plywood boats.

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And now back to the trailer

Remember the trailer? This one, the one that almost killed us?

We left the shantyboat hull pretty complete. Now that the boat is ready to be flipped, we turn our attention back to the trailer.

It is really a rusty, janky old thing. Ive owned it for fifteen years or so, or sorta owned it since I bought it with Sean for our Burning Man theme camp, the Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet. Its been stolen and recovered, broken and repaired on the road. We used to haul that thing back and forth loaded to the gills over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, taking our lives into our own hands. Then we realized that if we stored it in the desert, we could save wear and tear on our mortality. So there it stayed for about ten years.

When the camp realized it could buy a shipping container and have it dropped off at their campsite every year without the hassle of dealing with That Trailer, the poor thing got abandoned for a few years out in the Nevada wilds. You remember that I drove out to the desert with Alex to rescue our friend the trailer, a trip with nearly fatal results.

So here it is, a 20 foot flatbed, maybe suited to my shantyboat, maybe not, needing suspension work, a coat of paint, deck repair, and maybe some repair welds.

The first thing I did was fire up my cutting torch and cut off the weird distinctive triangle things, and ground down the cuts. I always assumed they were there as a token gesture to structural reinforcement.

I replaced all the deck bolts that had rusted through, grinding off and replacing any that had loosened. The deck needed about 50 new bolts. This alone made the deck much more stable.

I gave all the metal on the entire trailer, top and bottom, a new coat of Rust-Oleum. I had to get suited up to prevent myself from being painted too thoroughly, climbing under the trailer and applying paint overhead.

It looked pretty good when I was done. Though crawling around under the trailer, I saw several places where the metal was cracked, principally around the lateral beam that joined the two pairs of leaf springs on either side.

For a while, Id been sweating how to make the skids that would hold up the boat. I considered using recycled railroad ties since I could get them for free at the local trainyard, but their height and condition were too inconsistent. Eventually I got a ridiculous deal from a friend at the local lumberyard who found me some 6x6 treated lumber seconds that had a barely perceptible twist or were split a bit at one end.

I positioned the skids so one set would lie just inside of the skegs, and the other set so they lay at the outside edge of the trailer, as far out as could be secured. I figured this would support the boat along the stringers as well as give it side-to-side stability, something I thought would be extra important as we were trucking down the highway.

I drilled bolt holes through the skids and into the support brackets under the trailer.

I put big long 8 inch carriage bolts through the skids. For extra measure, I painted the bottom and tops of the carriage bolts. Lawrence joined me for a bit and serenaded me with excellent banjo tunes.

To prevent the skids from damaging the surface of the hull, I chamfered the sharp edges of the skids with my skill saw.

I cut the ends of each skid at an angle to guide the skegs while the boat was being trailered. Though honestly, I dont think the skegs at the back of the boat will be anywhere near the skids, since that end of the trailer will be deep under water and the back of the boat high above it during a boat launch or trailering. But it seemed like a good idea.

Then I covered the skids with indoor/outdoor low-pile carpet, stapling and using roofing nails at the edges.

The result was surprisingly legit looking.

Then Jen and I sat on the trailer and had a beer.  Something about this trailer makes you want to sit on it and have a drink.  Whats that about?

Next, the superhero of heavy duty welding flies the trailer high into the sky and melts it with his heat ray vision!

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Some more Hells Bay Boatworks photos and history and other past history

Today taking a break from a design commission Iam drawing up, a small house, I have found these photos from my past. Its very rolly and windy today with guts in the 30s . Even anchored well behind and what would seem to be the lee in these big islands the anchorages here can be uncomfortable. You have to imagine getting in and out of the bath tub and thats how the seas make it around the corners of these islands. 

This is Jack Nicklauss  yacht " The Bear" with three HBBWs skiffs on deck.We knew a Captian that knew Jacks Captian that said Jack was interested in our skiffs. I took three of our skiff models down to West Palm to meet up with Jack.

We spent half a day riding around in each skiff with me trying to show him how to drive them. At first he just did not understand that you had to run these skiffs like a sports car. Once he got the hang of it he loved our boats. He orderd all three models. I had a great time with him and meeting his wife.

He was to be leaving for the Bahamas to go fishing for a few weeks so I offered to come back in a few days to measure his boat for all the skiffs cradles to be made and bring him a loner skiff to use for his trip. It would be awhile before we had his skiffs built.

When I returned a few days later his Captian was ready to put this loaner skiff on deck. We had a brand new Guide for him to use. I brought along an employee to photograph this skiff being lifted onto the deck of Jacks boat. We had just really started getting into putting skiffs on decks of yachts. The deal was the Davits that lift these skiffs can only lift 1,000 lbs or less. Our skiffs all weighed with fuel way under this load so we had the market all to our shelfs. When hooking up the lift cable I explained to the Captian that he had it on wrong and when it was to be turned it would put a huge strain on his hook and tackle. No I was wrong according to him and his mates. Up goes the boat with me saying its no good and when they went to turn the boat to lower BAM !!! Breaks the hook and the cable with my skiff bouncing over Jacks yacht and over the side. No one was hurt physically except the captains ego. 

Iam the guy thats pushing my skiff away from Jacks new boat. We lowered the Guide down to the dock . I now retied the lift my way and we lifted it up on deck and all worked fine. The damage to this Kevlar Guide consisted of two minor scratches that I could fix no problem. Jacks new aluminum yacht had four 4 cracks in its deck with the davit being the worst having broke away partially from the deck.

I looked the captain in the eye and said I wont tell if you wont , and Ill fix my damage and you can deal with yours. Yes please he said . Shit happens . Ive always wondered how he explained the repair bill.

This is the Marquesa skiff plug starting. I have just cut out all the stations and installed them on the building jig. You  can see the two chine levels going in and the foam core planking going on. Thats Stan Nash walking by. Having guys like Stan Nash working at HBBWs from the beginning really made the difference.

One side of the core skin almost on. Once on you can glass over this and pull off and glass the inside and then you have a cored hull . In the past I used cedar as it was cheaper.

I loved this cover. We had hired my sister whos a professional photographer to take pictures of all our skiffs. Flip had this idea of a shot. The shuttle was going up while she was in town so lets get as close as we can and set it up. During that time a few unmanned rockets had exploded and the shuttle was always being postponed. I thought this was a waste of time. Flip knew exactly where to go. Flip and Hal with the Guide skiff are in 1 of water anchored bow and stern. We are in another skiff with ladders in the water in about 2 of water. Flips wife  Diane has a camera with one lens size and my sister with another. Iam standing in the water holding up these two ladders for the girls so they are steady grumbling to myself of what a waste of time. The radio is tuned into the countdown,its a beautiful day... Suddenly its 9 8 7 6 .... The water around us starts vibrating like a shaking pool . We are 11 miles away from the launch site but its so big it seems weer going to get the smoke . 2 1 blast off ,and up she goes.

The picture used here was taken by Diane Pallot. We photo shopped the anchor line out of the picture.

When taking all the early morning sunrise pictures with my sister I would lay in the water and hold the skiffs still. 

Chris Peterson, whats Hal Chittum doing in this advertizement?

Sailing in the Bahamas at the age of 19 in my little sloop. Looks like shark for dinner.

In todays sailing world a flat top mainsail is all the rage. This is one i fitted to my sailing dinghy 28 years ago. Iam sailing onto the beach in Cat Island Bahamas. Way ahead of my time ....no ,I just only had so long of a mast.

This is Dick Negleys Scooter boat I built in all Kevlar. Iam in the Laguna Madre in 6" of water with my feet holding the skiif still.

Rachel next to Hogfish Maximus showing off Hoggys nice box shape.

Ah spear fishing below Andros on the Bahama banks. All shot on one coral head free diving. Thats Cress Newbold the best man at our wedding in Spanish Wells 26 years ago.

Chris Pinder in red and Rupert Sawyer with a morning catch of crawfish- lobster. No sun protection back then. 

Johnny Pinder coming up with a few 

I will leave you with this shot from the 70s of a bahamian sailing sloop hauled out on the shore in Lisbon Creek Andos. Theyre all gone now.

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